


Another Spring

by starlurker



Category: As the World Turns
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-17
Updated: 2010-11-17
Packaged: 2017-10-13 06:25:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/133997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlurker/pseuds/starlurker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The moments after are the sweetest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Another Spring

**Author's Note:**

> Reid is alive, so willfully in-denial AU. Damn incompetently written canon.

This was how Reid averted death during a crucial point in his life. He calmly unbuckled his seatbelt and walked out of his car when it was stuck on the tracks. The train hurtled along and smashed his car to bits and all Reid could think about was the insurance because he had speeding issues and was already paying way too much money -- in fact, he was banned from driving in Tuscaloosa. Or so the sheriff of Tuscaloosa said. When the train finally stopped, his car was basically the equivalent of a soda can crushed underfoot, complete with alarming liquids pouring out of it.

This deserved a head massage at the very least, he thought. There was nothing else he could do about Chris' heart right now, so he called the hospital to let them know about the accident, a part of him not wanting to think of Katie and the rest of the Hughes and that it was no longer under his control. Then he called Luke.

"My car was crushed by a train," he said when Luke picked up.

"My yacht was sunk by a U-boat, what's your point?"

He never loved Luke more. "Luke, I'm serious." He hated saying it because he rarely heard Luke like that: confident, secure, comfortable enough that he could make sarcastic jokes and know that Reid wouldn't take offense.

"My God, are you OK?" And there it was, the all too familiar note of sorrow that undercut a lot of what Luke said, that lingering suspicion that it would all go away somehow.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," Reid said. "I'm talking to you, aren't I?"

"How did it happen?" Panic this time.

"It's a long and stupid story not worth talking about," Reid said. "What I could use is a lift though, if you're free."

"Where are you?"

Reid gave the location and had to add, "Hard to miss the gawkers and the police."

The police questioning was tedious. The gawkers were tedious. The train conductor was tedious, even though he did nothing to Reid technically, but he did insist on saying ad nauseam, "Thought I'd retire without seeing a train collision, that's for damn sure. Damn sure I was and then wham! Train collision."

By the time he saw Luke's ridiculously fancy car, he felt like throttling everyone he could see.

"Excuse me," he said loudly. "My criminally hot boyfriend just came in his ridiculous car to pick me up, and he owes me a head massage when we get home. If I hear train, collision and miracle one more time, I won't operate on any of you if you're ever in the operating room." The crowd gawked at him again (idiots), the paramedic got a disgusted expression on his face (homophobe) and the police officer laughed (free donut-worthy).

"Go," the officer said. Reid gave her a grateful look and went straight for Luke, who seemed like he was going to cry or laugh or both. Luke hugged him like he wanted them to become one person, and just this once, Reid settled in. He wrapped his arms around Luke just as tightly, tucked his face into Luke's neck, smelled his expensive cologne and the clean scent of his skin and with a huge sigh, let the pounding headache and the tension across his shoulders seep away.

After a few minutes, he felt the crowd's stare.

"They're still staring, aren't they?"

"I don't really care," Luke said, his voice cracking.

"Two men hugging aren't that extraordinary."

"I thought you said you would never forget that you're in Oakdale."

It's easy to forget that when I'm here, Reid thought, not that he'd ever say the thought out loud. "If you're going to keep hugging me," he said into Luke's ear, "can you cup my ass so that it looks really tight? Might as well give them a show." Luke's sigh of exasperation was epic, and so was the accompanying eye roll. Reid felt himself pushed back gently and he noted with a heavy heart that Luke's eyes were watery, that his nose was red.

"You're such an ass," Luke said.

Reid just grinned and made sure he showed as many of his teeth as possible. He walked to Luke's car and grabbed Luke's hand as he walked past. "Take me home," he said.

The drive to Katie's was quiet, full of unsaid things. The adrenaline wore off and Reid was hit with a staggering wave of exhaustion -- it felt like he could drown in it if he wasn't careful. He nodded off at certain points and would come awake with a jerk. Luke's distressed silence dampened the mood further.

He really could have died.

By the time they got to the front door, Reid felt jittery, his nerves drawn as tight as violin strings. Luke kept giving him concerned looks but Reid didn't know what to say or do to reassure him when he didn't know what to tell himself. He walked a few steps in once the door opened and turned around to crack a joke, a line, anything to dispel the tension when he felt Luke grab his arm and push him back against the door.

"You could have died," Luke said brokenly. Their faces were close -- Reid could count eyelashes. Their breaths mingled as they both started to breathe heavily at each other, each breath of Luke's a mint and coffee scented puff on Reid's face.

"I didn't, Luke," he said.

Luke's face crumpled and Reid couldn't stand it. He cupped Luke's face and kissed him. First, a series of feather-light kisses on his closed eyes, the tip of his nose, then his generous mouth. Reid coaxed Luke's lips open with his tongue and desperation got a hold of him. Luke pinned him to the door and a part of Reid thrilled at it, giddy and buoyant, that Luke was taking control like this. This was one of the filthiest kisses they'd ever shared, and it was just what Reid needed, full of tongue and spit and clacking teeth that should have been uncomfortable but wasn't, because Reid was too busy making sure it got dirtier. He grabbed Luke and rolled his hips against Luke's, gratified to feel that Luke was just as hard and as desperate. Luke thrust back, the door behind them shaking with the force Luke was using and it kept going and going like that -- no clothes off, probably only a button open here and there, their mouths doing all the talking that they needed to do. It was magnificent somehow, and Reid felt like he was in high school again when his body was thrumming with desperation for release. And a few minutes of grinding and rubbing and thrusting was somehow enough and Luke thrust particularly hard and Reid's head hit the door with a loud bang and there it was, the mythical stars behind his eyes and electricity on his skin and fire in his veins. He heard Luke try and fail to hold back a keening sound, felt Luke bite hard at his neck as they shuddered against each other, Reid high on the scent of Luke's skin and the smell of sex in the air.

They sank to a graceless heap on the floor, Reid noticing with amusement that they were still fully clothed, but with wet spots on their pants. He couldn't have cared less. Luke put his head on Reid's chest and they stayed by the door.

"This is just part one of our first time," Reid said when his senses came back.

"I don't know if I could take more," Luke replied. He sounded dazed, and Reid would ordinarily be smug about this, but there were other factors in play here.

"It gets so much better, Luke. You'll see."

"You almost died today." Now that the desperation was gone, the air around them settled into a strange, fearful calmness, like the eye of a hurricane.

"But I didn't," Reid said, and for the first time that day, it felt like something he could finally put behind them. It would be a great story to tell at functions and parties where Reid would be bored out of his skull and Luke would be doing his best to make sure Reid didn't say anything too blunt. Years from now, and Reid saw this clearly in a moment of precognition, he and Luke would go to bed and Reid will turn to Luke and say _remember when I almost died because a train hit my car?_ and they'd laugh because it was years behind them already and there were more to live through in the particular state of ornery happiness special to them.

THE END


End file.
